Author(s): Mike Johnson

New Zealand Poetry

Lyrical, supple, unexpected and deceiving: the title poem brings you to a world where there are only clues. Here is an extended poem, a search for the self and for meaning, which reads like a mystery story - the excitement of the paper chase, the distance, the illusive glimpses, the haunting, the false leads and hot trails... A second movement, contrasting but subtly related, is a group of loose sonnets, including four written after the Chinese poet Gu Cheng killed his wife and then himself on Waiheke Island in 1993. With economy and ease Mike Johnson fills out a world rich in feelings, intimations and charged landscapes - a world encoded within the cryptic signs and counter signs of the Treasure Hunt.